The Making of a Lady

A critical and audience hit for ITV, a two hour adaptation of a ‘forgotten’ novel by Frances Hodgeson Burnett

Emily Fox (Lydia Wilson), penniless but respectable single girl in turn of Twentieth Century London, gets lucky. By chance not design, she lands herself a huge fish for a husband – the great and wealthy Lord Waldehurst (Linus Roache). He could have had anyone, but much to everyone’s general amazement, he chooses her. Waldehurst is double her age and extremely reserved, but he saves her from a bed-sit and an income which depends on running errands for difficult old ladies. Emily is incredibly grateful. This is every girl’s fairy tale come true….isn’t it?

UK TX – ITV 16 December 2012

US TX – PBS 9 February 2014

Written by Kate Brooke and directed by Richard Curson Smith

Starring Linus Roache, Lydia Wilson, James D’Arcy and Joanna Lumley

Reviews:

If your hand is not yet reaching for a swift tot of medicinal cherry brandy, then keep it close by for when The Making of a Lady is broadcast on ITV this Sunday evening.Starring Joanna Lumley, Linus Roache and James D’Arcy, it is deftly adapted from the long-forgotten Frances Hodgson Burnett novel, The Making of a Marchioness, by writer Kate Brooke. And it is just the sort of gothic tale that can be screened only in winter, when the curtains are drawn and the lights dimmed ….. It’s a lot to pack in, but The Making of a Lady has all the tension, atmosphere and action you could wish for.

The Telegraph

ITV1’s disturbing new period piece The Making of a Lady reminds us that Frances Hodgson Burnett didn’t just write twee stories for children. – Florence Walters